Shocked face here.Originally Posted by Rmiked
If you're cycling live rounds, stop that now. This in no way replicates the forces present in live fire and you're creating a false negative by doing it. It's also dangerous.
Shocked face here.
If you're cycling live rounds, stop that now. This in no way replicates the forces present in live fire and you're creating a false negative by doing it. It's also dangerous.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
After having extensive run and field-tested a pretty broad spectrum of Check-Mate's 1911 .45 ACP magazines, my personal conclusion is that the dimple is largely irrelevant operationally; what's far more important in my experience is that the magazine has a fully skirted follower and an extra-strength magazine spring. All of my use is with commercial ammunition, preponderantly 230 gr standard pressure ball, but also with a variety of commercial JHPs (primarily Speer Gold Dot, Remington Golden Saber and Federal Hydra-Shok). The extra-strength magazine spring is especially important with an abbbreviated slide 1911 (i.e., Commander, etc) due to the increased slide reciprocation speed narrowing the window of acceptable operation.
While I generally use hybrid feed lip configured magazine lips, if I'm more concerned about cartridge retention within the magazine if a full or partially expended is ejected on a hard surface, I'll lean toward a semi-wadcutter or wadcutter feed lip configuration magazine.
Best, Jon
I’ve just acquired a few Mec-Gar 7-round nickel plated magazines for my Colt CCO 1911, and their followers are completely flat. No embossment or other feature on the surface. They run perfectly.
I’ve successfully run 1911 magazines with embossed point followers, followers with a full debossed trough, and followers with a full half-cylinder embossment. They all work, as long as they have decent springs. I put the differences down to specific manufacturer preferences.
The most important thing in my experience is the springs. Heavier springs always seem to work better and longer, particularly in configurations like the CCO (Commander length slide on an Officer frame with lower overall mass).
Sorry for late follow up on the dimple (pimple) on follower. I tested these magazines live fire and they performed flawlessly. Full magazine (max spring force) and only 1 round (least spring force). Rapid fire or slow fire. No failures and slide lock on empty magazine every time. This has been a good learning experience that the dynamics of live fire is the only real test. Thanks for experience. My only comment is that I did not try to get 9 rounds in the magazines. 8 is fine but the spring force is fairly stiff. I didn’t buy them for 9 round capacity as the factory mags (Metalform, round follower, 8 round) are fine and I needed some extras. Can’t find the metalform anywhere with bump pad and removable base plate. These WC they were in LGS but not available anywhere online.
As already mentioned, the pimple is to help stop inertia feed. However, that is an issue with GI feed lips (and probably hybrid feed lips) as while they feed very smoothly, they don't hold the rounds very securely.
Almost all 1911 mags made today use wadcutter feed lips. They hold the rounds in the tube more securely and generally don't need the pimple to prevent inertia feed.
Wilson, by the way ships their magazines with instructions.
Some key information ...
https://s3.amazonaws.com/wilsoncomba...s/47Series.pdf
Like other mechanical devices, your Wilson Combat® magazine may be a little stiff when first used. This is normal and should not effect its feeding capabilities, however you will notice that as you use your magazine it will become easier to load and seat in your pistol and it will function even more smoothly over time. If you wish to expedite the break in process simply leave your new magazine loaded to capacity for a day or two, this will pre-set the spring to normal operating tension.
This doesn't really go over followers but I found this pretty interesting.
http://how-i-did-it.org/magazines2/index.html
I’m reading the link you sent. I have a Dan Wesson Specialist is 10mm. The factory mags ( metalform, round follower, removable baseplate) work great. I bought the Wilson Combat 47NX and it works great. I know the feed lips on these are NOT the GI style tapered feed lips. The feed lips on the Metalform and WC47NX look the same even though the followers are different. I have observed the 45 ACP followers may look different . For example the WC ETM Vickers Tactical magazine (45ACP) follower is much different than my WC47NX (10mm). Are my feed lips on 47NX “hybrid” or “wad cutter”? I am too inexperienced in 1911s to know. I am thinking they are wad cutter type because they appear to be parallel.
I read those two articles with great interest when they came out, and several times over the years. I bought in big time, and jumped on the hybrid feed lip bandwagon.
Then I let it all sink in.
The big claim in the first article was Wilson Combat mags, 47D in this instance, bypass controlled round feed, and simply lose rounds as the slide comes forward and let the extractor snap over the rim. This was a big deal to a lot of folks and they dumped their Wilson 47's for other top mags like Chip McCormick (CMC) or Tripp Research Cobra Mags.
Wilson's may bypass controlled round feed, but even in article #2, where he shows the stop action feeding cycle, he doesn't show or prove it. In addition, the thing that would cause the loss of controlled round feeding would be the feed lips and not the follower.
For all those folks that dumped their Wilson's to avoid the loss of controlled round feed, and bought CMC or Tripp mags, they ended up with the same feed lip style as the Wilson's, wadcutter feed lips. Actually, the vast majority of 1911 mags made today use wadcutter feed lips, from Wilson, to CMC, to Tripp, to ACT-Mag, to Mec-Gar, etc. You really have to do some work to find a 1911 mag with some other feed lip style. Wadcutter feed lips are so common, most makers and retailers don't even specify what type of feed lips their mags have. CheckMate offers their hybrid feed lipped mags, though they are a Colt invention from the 1970's or 1980's, and they also offer the original GI style feed lips, but other than CheckMate, if you are buying a 1911 mag, you are probably getting a mag with wadcutter feed lips.
Last edited by JTQ; 08-23-2021 at 07:28 AM.
Continued - I was an early buy-in of the CheckMate hybrid feed lip mags, those articles made me feel good about my choice. Then I started to notice a consistent problem with inertia feed with those hybrid lipped mags. At first I thought it was just me, but then noticed other users on other forums were having similar issues. The big proponent of that feed lip style claimed it was a bad set of springs in the early versions of those CheckMate mags and the 11 lb Wolff Extra Power mag springs would fix the issue. They didn't, at least for me.
I also noticed reports on forums of the hybrid lipped mags losing rounds from mags when they were pulled from mag pouches, or when carried loose in a pocket or bag.
Over on M1911.org, the forum with a big hybrid feed lip following, member niemi24s, who if you recognize the name, you'll know he has done some fascinating 1911 engineering stuff, with pictures to document them, had posts, with pictures, indicating the hybrid lipped mags actually released the round earlier than wadcutter mags.
Last edited by JTQ; 08-23-2021 at 07:16 AM.
Finally - I started paying attention to those professionals that used 1911's and watching their videos, looking at their pictures, and reading their articles and websites, to see what mags they were using.
Clint Smith & Tiger McKee, always seem to have Wilson mags. The US military spec'd Wilson mags for their M45. Vickers and Hackathorn like Wilson mags, as does Jason Burton. Hilton Yam likes CMC PowerMags, as does Chuck Rogers at Rogers Precision.
Sure, some could be on the Wilson payroll, or get their mags from whatever maker for free, but these folks shoot lots and lots of rounds through 1911's every year, at all kinds of odd angles, or build guns that folks expect to work, and if these mags with wadcutter feed lips didn't work, or lost controlled round feed, and were causing them problems, they'd stop using them, but it doesn't seem they have stopped.
The other thing was, if wadcutter feed lips were so bad, why would nearly every 1911 mag maker use them? How about every other auto loader you own, do any of your other auto loaders have mags with anything other than parallel feed lips?
I think there is a legitimate argument to be had about who makes the best follower, or best tube, or uses the best springs, but nearly all of the best 1911 mags use wadcutter feed lips.
If someone likes mags with hybrid feed lips, and they work great for you, I'm not going to say you're wrong. I think that's great, and you should continue with what you have success with. However, if you read those articles and come to the conclusion that Wilson mags - which are specifically identified as a problem mag in the articles - are a problem waiting to happen, and switch to another highly regarded mag, such as CMC or Tripp or CERTAC or ACT-Mag, etc., you'll find you're getting the same feed lip style Wilson uses, and apparently the same loss of controlled round feed.
Last edited by JTQ; 08-23-2021 at 07:24 AM.
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